In defense of Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest"

It's Mother's Day in Portugal and Mother's Day next Sunday in the US. Since we're celebrating 1981 this week, we're starting early with the biggest, meanest mother of them all!

by Cláudio Alves

In 1971, in her book titled My Way of Life, Joan Crawford, the legendary diva of Old Hollywood, said that, of all the actresses of the time, only Faye Dunaway had the talent, the class and the courage to be a movie star. Had she lived to see the younger actress play her in the infamous Mommie Dearest, Crawford would have probably revised her statement. The 1981 biopic is one of the great camp classics of all time, a prestige picture with pretensions of Oscar glory that crashed and burned most spectacularly. Dunaway herself is said to have believed she was on her way to Academy Award glory. Instead, she got a Razzie for Worst Actress...

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Podcast Recap 'Mrs. America,' episodes 4 and 5

by Murtada Elfadl

Over at Sundays With Cate, we continue recaping and reviewing Mrs. America starring Cate Blanchett. This week we tackle episodes 4 and 5 dealing with Betty Freidan (Tracey Ullman) and Brenda Feigen Fasteau (Ari Graynor) debating Phyllis Schlafly (Blanchett). My guest is staff writer at Backstage, Casey Mink.

What did you think of the latest episodes of Mrs. America?

1981 Retro: Revisiting the Women of "For Your Eyes Only"

Team Experience is revisiting 1981 this week inbetween your regular programming...

by Deborah Lipp

For Your Eyes Only  (1981) is fairly well-loved among Bond fans; in looking at the 24 official movies plus Never Say Never Again, it ranks a bit above middle-of-the-pack. I slice my data on a few different metrics to get an accurate picture (but that’s a story for another day). The 12th Bond film is often thought of as Roger Moore’s best outing (I prefer The Spy Who Loved Me) and it's certainly his most serious.

My love for James Bond, and Bond movies, is unwavering, but each time I revisit them, I see them with new eyes. I’ve seen 1981’s For Your Eyes Only many times, but watching it in 2020 is necessarily different from watching it at any other times. After all, we always bring ourselves to our movie-going...

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Celebrity IOU: Brad, Melissa, and Viola.

by Eric Blume

And now for something completely different.  Not sure how many folks have caught it yet, but a few weeks ago, HGTV, center of home improvement and home selling shows, launched a new program called Celebrity IOU.  The concept is that a famous person treats a loved one to a home/property makeover, working in conjunction with the network’s twin “Property Brothers” Jonathan and Drew Scott. 

Usually we wouldn’t write about this here at TFE, but HGTV got some really big guns for their first three episodes, all recent Oscar winners or nominees.  Episode one featured Brad Pitt; episode two was Melissa McCarthy; and episode three, Viola Davis...

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Streaming Roulette May: Circus of Books, Song of the Sea, Etc...

by Nathaniel R

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful or two of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating.  Ready? Let's play...

I'm sorry it's just upsetting to me to hear that.

Circus of Books (2020) on Netflix
Sometimes expectations can get too high when you hear nothing but raves (including one right here). This documentary about nice Jewish parents running a gay porn shop, is a good film and you absolutely should watch it, don't misunderstand. But the clumsy hand-held camera took us out of the picture way too often. It's curious to land on this image of the daughter/director  because though the scene is moving and the movie wouldn't have been possible without the insider feel, we kept wanting more context from/about the adult children to better illuminate the family drama... which isn't really a sidebar topic, though it often feels that way.

More after the jump including The Half of It, and all-too familiar rants about Angela Bassett's career, and Oscar's Best Animated Feature category...

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